Yes, it is time for the re-certification of the BLS Healthcare Provider Course from the American Heart Association! That 2 year mark seems to come around quicker every time. I took mine tonight and I just want everyone to know that it was the most informative CPR course I have taken so far and every student had their own manikin to work on. Boy, were they realistic too. If you are in the triangle area of NC and you miss the course offered at your work place (or maybe they don’t offer one), I highly recommend you call Joanne Fried of Action CPR, L.L.C. She’s great! She does classes in her home 7 days a week. My husband (also a nurse and needing re-certification) called this morning and we both got into a class tonight. What convenience! And the price is excellent – $55.00.

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I recently renewed my membership in the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) and attended the National Teaching Institue and Critical Care Exposition in Washington DC. What an experience! So many inspiring and brillant nurses! One of the reasons to attend this convention is to earn the requisite continuing education credits to renew your nursing license as per your state BON. See your state’s requirements here: http://nursing-exams.ca/CE/requirements.html). In exploring the AACN web site to retrieve my credits from NTI, I discovered that many of their online CE learning library credits are free to nonmembers as well as members, so take advange of this if you are a nurse working towards license renewal or if you are a nursing student and feel like taking your learning a bit further! This link will take you directly to the AACN CE library: http://www.aacn.org/DM/CETests/CELibrary.aspx?menu=CETests&lastmenu=. And, by the way, I highly recommend membership in AACN or the nursing association related to your specialty or the specialty you hope to go into.

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Anyone that is a visual learner who feels like they could get through sections of nursing such as cardio or neuro a little easier if they could just visualize how the body works should go to YouTube, start an account and subscribe to “hyperhighs”. He draws physical anatomy and explains how the heart works, how blood pressure is controlled, and much more. He was really helpful to me during nursing school. He is a superb artist and musician also.

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I noticed that there were 3 searches on “what is neurological sequelae” today that led to this blog site. I’m thinking you didn’t find the answer, so I thought I might go into this a bit. “Neurological sequelae”, whoa, big phrase, huh? Let’s break it down. The secret to answering the question is to look up the word ‘sequelae’. Wikipedia covers it pretty well (I know, the instructors say not to use Wikipedia, but this is not to use as a reference in a paper, so….): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Sequela. It states, “A sequela, (pronounced /sɨˈkwiːlə/, plural sequelæ) is a pathological condition resulting from a disease, injury, or other trauma”. Now you can understand that ‘sequelae’ could be neurologic, cardiologic, metobolic, etc, right?

Of course to answer the question, you must know what the original disease, injury or other trauma is. For example, herniation would be one neurological sequela to increased ICP. Increased ICP could be a neurological sequela to a subdural hematoma. In other words, of a certain neurological problem, what could it progress into.

In Case You Don’t Know: Subdural hematoma – a hematoma (internal bleeding) between the dura (the inner most ‘covering’ layer around the brain) and the brain. ICP or Intracranial Pressure – pressure within the cranium or head caused by swelling of the brain or bleeding in the cranial cavity (this is not a good thing, because, once your fontanelle’s grow together as a baby, your head doesn’t really expand; it is a closed cavity). Herniation of the brain – if you have swelling of the brain or bleeding that is taking up space in the head, the brain, being crowded, only has one place to go; down the brain stem. This is known as the brain herniating (This can be partial or full. Full is rarely, if ever, recoverable and is assessed as a blown pupil):

Blown pupil:

If you have a question about specific neurological sequela, let me know what it is. I’ll see what I can figure out for you.

I’m Amy and I set up this blog to give our nursing class of 2009 at Durham Technical Community College a place to talk about issues pertaining to our pinning ceremony. I have also found sites and other items of interest that I have added as links that might be helpful to other nursing students. I got my inspiration from Dani of Tired Student Nurses. Dani has an amazing website that has helped me through 2 years of nursing school. Dani has since been forced to disassemble her web blog so I have copied some of her questions under “NCLEX style practice questions”. I hope you find them as helpful as I did. Thanks Dani!

If you want to be a nurse, know that nursing school will take a full time commitment. It is not easy. Of course, we will hold peoples’ lives in our hands when we get in the work force, so it should not be easy. I’ll let you know if the rewards of becoming a nurse are worth the torture of nursing school. I think they will be. I do pray to God that if I ever become as non-compassionate as some of the nurses I have come in contact with while in school that he will lead me out of the profession. I have also come across some of the most wonderful human beings I’ve ever met that truly embody what a nurse should be; please let me be like them.

If anybody has any links, quick notes, or NCLEX questions they think might be helpful to other nursing students, feel free to paste them in a comment and I will move them to the proper section. I would also love some feedback on what else you think might be helpful.